Lunar | As Scotland makes menstrual products available for free, time for medical science to reckon with women’s pain
- Ensuring universal access to free menstrual products acknowledges that periods can be disruptive of life and health, but governments the world over have much more to do
- Medicine has a long history of ignoring women’s symptoms and limited research into their health problems, such as endometriosis and PCOS
This should only be the beginning. With Scotland showing the way, there are so many other period-related areas that need governmental support.
Endometriosis, a condition in which the cells of the inner lining of the uterus implant and grow abnormally in other parts of the body, was officially “discovered” in 1860, but endometriosis-associated symptoms were reported as far back as ancient Egypt. As for PCOS, a condition in which the ovaries produce an abnormal amount of male sex hormones or androgens, it was officially reported for the first time in 1721, but Diseases of Women by Hippocrates suggests that ancient Greece already had some knowledge of it.
Today, it is estimated that each of these conditions affects roughly one of 10 women around the world, from their first period to menopause.
Medicine has a long history of ignoring women’s symptoms and limited research into their health problems. Elinor Cleghorn opens her book Unwell Women by observing: “The history of medicine, of illness, is every bit as social and cultural as it is scientific.”
For the Western world, the (white) male body has been the benchmark of anatomy since Greek antiquity. Physical differences were perceived as deviations from what was considered the norm. Fuelling this logic, Aristotle othered the female body, describing it as “a mutilated male” with “cold” and passive reproductive organs.
